Journey to the Center of the Earth

by Jules Verne

edification. The treaty concluded, Hans silently withdrew.

On leaving Reykjavik Hans took us by the seashore. We passed lean pastures that were trying very hard, but in vain, to look green; yellow came out best. The rugged peaks of the trachyte rocks presented faint outlines on the eastern horizon; at times a few patches of snow, concentrating the vague light, glittered upon the slopes of the distant mountains; certain peaks, boldly uprising, passed through the gray clouds, and reappeared above the moving mists, like breakers emerging in the heavens.

“No more; that is sufficient. When science has uttered her voice, let babblers hold their peace.”

That sharp peak might hence be considered as the gnomon of a vast sun dial, the shadow projected from which on a certain day would point out the road to the center of the earth.

tree ferns, as tall as our fir trees in northern latitudes; lepidodendra, with cylindrical forked stems, terminated by long leaves, and bristling with rough hairs like those of the cactus. “Wonderful, magnificent, splendid!” cried my uncle. “Here is the entire flora of the second period of the world—the transition period. These, humble garden plants with us, were tall trees in the early ages. Look, Axel, and admire it all. Never had botanist such a feast as this!”

I remarked: “It is so; and here is a fact that science has scarcely suspected.” “Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors that it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.”